Obama’s first explicit call for Assad to resign — something critics have pressured him to do — culminated months of calibrated diplomacy that has included three rounds of sanctions and a gradual policy shift toward regime change in a nation long at odds with U.S. policy in the Middle East.
The president made his announcement hours before leaving on a 10-day vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, where he has little contact with journalists, and as Assad presses ahead with a broad military campaign that has killed hundreds of Syrian civilians. The crackdown is one of the most brutal government responses to protests during the tumultuous Arab Spring.
As Obama issued his statement, the leaders of France, Germany and Britain joined him in calling on Assad “to face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people and to step aside.”
Obama had spoken to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron over the past two weeks to discuss calling for Assad’s resignation and to coordinate steps on sanctions.
Many of Obama’s critics, including Senate hawks and human rights groups, questioned his reluctance to call for Assad’s ouster, a move opposed until recently by key regional U.S. allies such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The critics have compared it unfavorably to Obama’s more rapid decision to end support for now-ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally.
Human rights advocates estimate that more than 2,000 Syrian civilians have been killed in the Assad government’s five-month-old crackdown, which has spread from restive border areas in the south to many of the country’s major cities.
On Thursday, the top U.N. human rights agency issued a scathing account of the operation, urging the Security Council to consider authorizing the International Criminal Court to investigate possible crimes against humanity. Several Western nations also plan to draft a U.N. resolution that would demand that Syria stop its crackdown and would impose an arms embargo on Damascus.
Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, said the United States “is launching a humanitarian and diplomatic war against us.”
The sanctions that the Obama administration announced Thursday freeze all Syrian government assets that are under U.S. jurisdiction and bar Americans from doing business with the government.
They also prohibit the import of Syrian oil and petroleum products, an essential element of Syria’s economy, to the United States. Diplomats said European leaders, whose countries consume about 90 percent of Syria’s petroleum exports, were exploring similar curbs.
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